


Stress Eating

by Lillian



Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: 69 (Sex Position), Alternate Universe - Canon, Horror, Lovecraftian, M/M, Rimming, cosmic horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-12
Updated: 2019-06-12
Packaged: 2020-05-02 06:23:35
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,529
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19193491
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lillian/pseuds/Lillian
Summary: Tony and Nebula are stranded in space. The food runs out. Their situation is dire.Fortunately for Tony, Peter's always willing to play his knight in shining armor.Or he was, when he was still alive.





	Stress Eating

_I ain't greedy, baby, all I want is all you got._

Tony does dream of Pepper, at first. It's so comforting while he still has the capacity to be comforted. It makes him feel so dignified. Here he is, stinking of sweat and piss and shit, the loose skin slowly drooping off his bones, dying one brain cell at a time, and what does he dream of? The woman he loves. Such elevated thoughts. He might just float out into space like a cheery balloon bursting with noble sentiment.

It proves that Tony really did change, for all the good it did him.

Or the world.

Or the kid.

But he mustn't think of Peter. Not if he wants to keep functioning.

Then time passes, rations run out, and now Tony dreams only of food. Hamburgers dripping with juice as Tony gorges himself, even the greasy wrapping paper so maddening he wants to take it into his mouth and suck on it until the last precious drop of fat has been extracted. He dreams of doughnuts, the grit of powdered sugar on his face, the clots of melted cheese sliding off a piping hot pizza slice and into Tony's beard, and water, sweet water sluicing down his throat in a chilly rivulet. Dreams more sensual than he's ever had about Pepper, or any other woman.

Tony's only human after all, and humans are no better than animals.

A dying, starving creature, that's what Tony is. He realizes that fact with his fuzzy brain, and yet it _feels_ like instead of dying he's turning more into a beast with every passing moment, every submersion into sleep. It feels like he's transforming- another comforting illusion. Scents grow sharper. In his ears the footsteps of the wandering Nebula transform from a hunter's soft prowl to a scavenger's heavy tread. She trails clouds of machine oil and synthetic fabric that seem to suck what little life is left in the stale air. Sometimes it feels like there's little rat feet pitter-pattering inside the walls, someone whispering. Other times they purr mechanically.

Tony couldn't abide the stars at first, but now he turns his leaden head towards the illuminator whenever he's lucid enough to manage it. On the other side of the glass there's nothing but empty space, as hungry as Tony is. No noise. No scent. On this side even the light seems alive, green and poisonous. The glow pulses and fills him, pulses and fills, insubstantial and unsatisfying. Like lichen sucking its nourishment from Tony's bones. The light loops in and out of the ship just as it darts in and out of Tony. Outside the stars grow halos, then those halos grow thorns that slowly connect them. Tony knows it's just his optical nerves degenerating, but it looks beautiful, nets of light coalescing.

He dreams of rescue, a woman emerging out of that light, blond like his mom or Pepper, there to save Tony.

It's a nice dream, and even while it lasts he knows it's a lie.

In the waking world there's no knight in shining armor, only the light and Tony's stomach stuck together like a sunken water-skin. He wonders how long a human being can last like that. Too long he imagines, not moving, barely breathing, vegetating.

His eyelids grow heavy once more and this time the vision feels real enough to hurt. He's transported back to Titan, Peter on his lips and down his throat, in his lungs, Peter who Tony licks off his sooty fingers and whom he inhales, air and nourishment in one. Tony doesn't want to taste but he does, he swallows, and then he buries his face in the dust before the wind steals it away.

He licks Peter off the ground between sobs of delirious relief.

It's fine, it's all fine now. It was touch and go for a minute, but he saved the kid. This little bright light in Tony's life, this innocent hope for the future is _safe_. It's safe within Tony. It's forever a part of Tony now.

Tony's screaming as loud as he can, tearing his throat out and writhing against the metal hands holding him down. In its desperation, his body dredges up reserves of strength he didn't imagine he had. He must not think he mustn't he can't. He can't stand the existence of his own consciousness and all around him the universe is empty and indifferent just as it was when he carried the nuke through the hole in the sky, except even worse because it doesn't stop.

He can almost see it again, falling backwards, the wormhole shrinking above him while he can't move a muscle in the dead suit. And how is it that he should have been conscious for that part and out of it when the Hulk caught him, he wonders now all of a sudden. Above him the tear seems to wink as if in response to his revelation, and then something happens Tony has no words to explain.

The closest he can come is that it feels like something grabs onto the crack in space, refusing to let it close, something that peels the sky above Tony in strips like the tissue paper over a present, or the thin skin over the juicy pulp of a fruit. Only it's not even the sky, it's a protective cover that's being stripped away, a set of blinkers that have always been there and that Tony's never noticed, it's Tony's very reality. And somewhere beyond it a horrible, vast being pins Tony down with its blind attention like a butterfly on a display board and the weight of its regard is enough to make Tony black out.

"I could give you something for the nightmares," Nebula announces when Tony unglues his eyelids the next time. They both know what she's really offering. Tony shakes his head no. This time. He can feel her stroking his cheek, as gently as she can.

Tony's so lucky that Nebula's here.

He must have dozed off because there Peter is, sitting cross-legged with his back to the illuminator, sickly grey in the green light, wreathed with star-thorns.

"Hey, Mr. Stark," he says Tony's name like he's tasting the way it feels on his tongue. His head inclines, as if his shadowed eyes are taking in Tony's shrunken form. "You don't look so good yourself."

Tony licks his cracked lips. It doesn't help, his tongue is almost as parched, swollen and dry as the tongue of a hanged man.

"Turns out you lucked out, Pete," he croaks out. "You're missing out on all this fun."

"You should eat something."

Tony's too tired to laugh. "I'll get right on that, kid."

Dream Peter shifts to his knees with effortless grace that is almost, but not quite the same as the real Peter's jittery athleticism. He shuffles closer to Tony's side cautiously, like he feels he might be turned away. He stretches out on his belly by Tony's side, propped on one elbow like a lover getting ready for pillow-talk.

"You know," Peter confesses softly. "I used to imagine something like this. You'd nod off over your worktop, or on the couch in the workshop, and I would just lean over you and kiss you. Sneak a taste."

"No, you didn't."

"It's true," Peter insists.

Tony shakes his head with all the viciousness he's capable of. Peter didn't think of Tony that way.

"It would be like stealing one of those 5-hundred a pop chocolates you bought for Ms. Potts," Peter continues. His eyes are deep and endless, the only part of him that's dark when he's bathed in light.

"I offered you some," Tony excuses himself. "You said no."

"But Mr. Stark, I _couldn't_ say yes. What if I liked them? It's not like I could ever have them again."

This much, Tony concedes, is probably true. His subconscious probably noticed that Peter wished he'd said yes to a carelessly-offered treat from Tony, and now Tony's conscience is dredging this up because feeling guilty over a moment of insensitivity is tons better than feeling guilty over letting the kid die. Too bad Tony's onto himself.

He remembers Peter stealing glances at the chocolate box, the bob of his throat as he swallowed. It's a face he made a lot around Tony, candy or not, but Tony tried very hard not to notice that. The kid was hungry for approval, attention, nothing more.

As if to prove him wrong, Dream Peter leans closer and presses his mouth to Tony's. And it's not light, soft and sweet like cotton candy, or anything else Tony might have imagined.

It's salty and metallic.

"Eat something, Mr. Stark. For me."

Tony comes to to discover he's bitten through his own lip, sucked it into his mouth to draw the sluggish trickle of blood down his throat. He doesn't even stop when he realizes what he's been doing, but the blood does, eventually.

Nebula's back at some point. She found some alien plasma in a first aid kid. It has some nutritional value, and it slides eagerly down Tony's gullet in blobs, wriggling almost like a living thing on the way down. There are 4 more bags from the half a dozen in the set. Two more days of life, if Nebula takes her share.

It would have made more sense for her to keep them all, but Tony knows her well enough to know she wouldn't have done that.

She must be all out of hope now anyway, and she doesn’t want to be alone here anymore than Tony does.

His head feels a little clearer, enough to despair.

He thinks he might be thrashing again, desperately trying to keep down the little he just ate, but he finds it's all okay. Peter's put Tony's head in his lap and is shushing him. Tony stops struggling.

Peter smiles down at him, pleased. His teeth are very white. He looks better now, not quite as grey and sharp-featured.

"It feels good, doesn't it?" Peter says, and Tony has no idea if he's talking about Tony's head on Peter's thigh, or the warm weight in Tony's stomach. "It's not your fault, Mr. Stark. I can see how you agonize over every little decision, struggling to do the right thing, but everyone has to eat to survive. Even plants compete for a spot in the sun. Only the newborns of your species feed without hurting anyone."

Peter's gentle hands help prop Tony against the wall.

"It's time to grow up, Mr. Stark."

Tony blinks at Peter, certain that he's missing something but unable to put his finger on what it is. Peter trails his own finger - cold, slightly clammy, up Tony's scraggy neck, round his bristly chin and to his mouth. He runs the tip of it across Tony's mouth, from side to side, again and again, as if fascinated.

"You should feed now, Mr. Stark, when you're strong enough to manage it. She won't see it coming. And when you're done-" the finger dips between Tony's lips. "-I will offer you a reward."

When he wakes - but does he ever wake anymore - Nebula's footsteps are the blundering of a herd animal in the underbrush.

Tony's so lucky that Nebula's here.

Tony eats, just like Peter told him to.

There's something soft and creamy, spreading across his palate like foie gras, something pleasantly crunchy but tasteless like the chicken foot Rhodey asked him to eat on a dare in college. He tugs with his teeth at tough, salty - but strangely moist - pastrami. (Not pastrami). And there's the tang of sardines in brine, so much of it. The food is plentiful. Less than could be expected, but more than enough for Tony.

Tony's only human after all, and humans are no more than vermin.

He becomes aware in the engine room. First there's sound, the familiar notes of a melody falling in the silence like millstones down a well.

 _Nononono, baby, I ain't asking much of you_ , croons Elvis. _Just a bigga bigga bigga hunk-a love a-will do._

It's one of Tony's fixer-upper songs. He manages to strain his neck up, almost expecting an out of body experience, for there to be a dream Tony elbow-deep in the innards of a car in a replica of his garage, humming to the music.

Instead there's Peter busy with a different set of guts of machinery, doing messy surgery on the ship with an alien blowtorch and a soldering-iron.

 _Don't be a-stingy little mama, you're 'bout to starve me half to death_ , offers Elvis by way of explanation.

Tony's certain he didn't make a noise, but Peter turns towards him unerringly. He waves a hand to the side and the music cuts off.

"Hey, Mr. Stark," he says, tossing everything aside and practically leaping to Tony's side, before sitting down on Tony's legs. Tony finds nothing strange in this familiarity, although Peter's never done it before. "You did great."

Tony squints at him. "What was I doing again?"

Peter smiles understandingly. "You were trying to fix the engines, remember? You were almost done but then you must have passed out from exhaustion and hunger. But now it's fine, I finished it, and we're going home."

Home. Yes, it's all coming back to Tony. They were on Titan, they lost, and everyone but he and Peter turned to dust. Tony patched up Quill's ship enough to take off, but it was badly damaged and they became... becalmed in space. There was little in the way of provisions, but Peter was such a great comfort throughout. Tony doesn't know what he would have done without him.

Peter beams wider, almost as if he heard the thought. Tony's stomach tries to turn, a strange and inexplicable bout of nausea. He doesn't feel hungry now, rather just full enough to be content.

"Nothing to do but kill time now," Peter says, his smile fading away. He reaches out very slowly, and unzips Tony's tracksuit in one long movement.

Once upon a time, after the first flush of shock, Tony would have put a stop to it, mocked the kid a little to make him give this up once and for all, tried to keep a stern paternal distance afterwards, though he knows he's always been bad at it. There seems to be little point to it now, he's failed in so many other ways. And Peter _wants_ this, and that seems to be enough. Any price is enough just as long as Peter's alive.

Which makes little sense, because Peter's life hardly depends on Tony's willingness to kiss Peter's neck, to tongue the little hole in his t-shirt just above the sharp little cartilage bump on his shoulder. Peter should smell overripe, they both should after weeks on this wretched tincan, but all Tony's nose detects is warm human skin with a taste to match. He samples other places - the crook of Peter's elbow, the thin skin between his forefinger and thumb, his silky nipples, the grooves between his ribs, his bellybutton, the fold between his hip and thigh. The little delicacies add up to a gourmet meal.

Intoxicated, Tony lays out Peter on his body upside down so he can nose into the crack of his ass where Peter's smell is particularly delicious, to lap at his asshole while Peter scrambles to push down Tony's own pants. Tony's not sure how he has enough blood left to get it up, but he does. Peter draws Tony's cock out with curious fingers, and then after a minimal inspection draws it into his mouth with single-minded focus. He doesn't watch his teeth as he sucks and slurps, but Tony doesn't mind. He bites into a rounded ass-cheek in retaliation, worries at Peter's right testicle with his tongue, wondering if he could make Peter come just from this.

Sex is always messy and undignified in Tony's experience, but this time it seems particularly so. Peter's saliva runs down Tony's balls and on the inside of his legs, and he feels more and more ravenous the closer he comes to coming. His jaw stretches open, his teeth scraping against Peter's taint, catching on his rim, making him squirm. He tugs on Peter's tight sack with his mouth, lets Peter's balls go and watches them tighten close to his body once more, before repeating the whole game. In turn, Peter swallows Tony's whole cock, something that should be impossible given Tony's size and the angle of his head. He rubs his own cock against Tony's chest, not even lifting his hips, trying to angle his ass into Tony's face.

Tony manages to fit the tip of his tongue inside Peter and it's that as much as the feeling of Peter's throat choking his cock that sends him over the edge. His orgasm is the sharpest Tony can remember but also disappointingly short. It only lasts as long as he spurts out seed, Tony's usual two or three dry waves cut short. Peter drinks down every drop, and then selfishly comes on Tony's chest, denying him his own treat.

Tony growls, dissatisfied but spent for now, and so tired he can barely think straight. Maybe he shouldn't have done this so soon after passing out, but it's too late now. He can feel Peter roll off him like a bloated leech, the cold where his body used to be, and for a terrifying moment Tony feels completely alone, like Peter was never there.

It passes, of course, Peter curls up under his chin, arm and leg thrown over Tony, contented puffs of breath on his chin.

They fall asleep snug as bugs in the bowels of the alien ship carrying them closer to Earth.

Tony's in one resort or other, at an empty beach on an overcast day with Pepper and the same toddler he dreamed about before Bruce and Strange showed up. In the distance there are deck chairs and umbrellas made of piled-on fresh grass, nothing that could identify the setting. The toddler and Pepper are separate from Tony, playing in the surf, an abandoned cone of kiwi ice-cream melting into the sand, the black seeds resembling crawling bugs.

Pepper laughs piercingly and Tony's attention shifts to her. She looks like a mermaid with her loose hair and long green dress. The kid is only an impression of dark hair and dark eyes, honey-colored skin free of freckles, nothing of Pepper in her. Even Tony's subconscious has an ego problem.

He takes another sip of the mojito in his hand and watches the peaceful sight.

"She looks scrumptious, your little one," Peter's voice chimes in from right behind him. Tony turns on his heel, stumbling, clumsy with surprise, or drink (or fear). For a moment it's like his mistress crashed his day out with his family. Even though Peter's just his _charity case vanity project crutch son creation charm to ward off loneliness_ mentee.

Peter gives Tony his usual sunny smile. He's naked and completely unashamed of it, even unaware. Like clothes are something that it didn't occur to him to have.

"I would have enjoyed her," he continues. "A little part of you that I wouldn’t have to restrain myself from. It would have been the closest thing to eating my cake and having it too. Too bad she won't exist now."

Tony steps between Peter and the two women to hide him (or them) from sight. He unbuttons his shirt quickly, but the cotton is so fine it's almost transparent, hiding little when he wraps Peter into it. Peter indulges him, letting Tony cover him up and lead him away.

In a little copse teeming with life, behind a curtain of ivy, he presses Peter into a tree and kisses him. Tony's consumed with desire, he already sullied Peter and now he wants to devour him and he mourns that he'll never be able to. It's Peter who's making a meal out of him, his intuition tells him, or perhaps it's his guilty conscience justifying itself. 

Tony did nothing wrong.

Tony just left a bite mark on Peter's supple neck - why didn't he notice before just how beautiful Peter was?

"That's the spirit, Mr. Stark," Peter says laughingly, climbing Tony like a vine.

They fuck like they're fighting, not against each other but together, towards a common goal.

...

They land Quill's ship directly outside the compound. Peter helps Tony down the ramp because for some reason Tony's embarrassingly unsteady on his feet. He spots Steve running towards them. Steve grabs Tony's other arm, and Peter lets go.

"I can't believe you really made it, it's been so long," Steve is saying.

Tony spots the raccoon behind him and doesn't know why he flinches.

Steve's still talking, trying to drag Tony towards the compound, towards Pepper and an unknowable number of friends and strangers after so much solitude. Tony needs the reassurance of seeing Peter, of knowing he's there.

Peter must be right behind, but his sneakers make no sound on the metal ramp.

Tony twists around to look at the reason he's still alive.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my second fic about this segment of Endgame, the first was Tony/Nebula sci-fi and here's my attempt at deliberately ambiguous horror. I tried to plant two equally possible explanations for what happens in the fic, and I'm burning with curiosity to find out if I succeeded. So please share your thoughts with me, I'd really appreciate it.


End file.
